Last night, September 17, marked the decadent premiere of Lucent Dossier’s Wednesday night residency at the Edison Bar. Deep in the dungeonesque belly of the first private power plant in downtown Los Angeles, the Vaudeville circus pranced around with feather headdresses and lace lingerie, dangling from sashes strung from the high, industrial ceilings of the spacious bar. Silent films flashed in sepia tones on cement walls while the troupe’s resident DJ –- DJ Imagika -- spun a surreal soundtrack and gorgeous dancers turned acrobatics into erotics. Lucent Dossier at the Edison is a night for voyeurs.

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The gritty setting summoned a sexy tension in the post-apocalyptic cabaret. Troupe members inhabited every hidden pocket of the bar, spinning their bodies into silky hammocks suspended from high beams, dancing seductively through the crowd, inviting couples sipping on pomegranate cocktails to put down their glasses and get their faces painted, or have their hands washed in a fancy, old-fashioned basin by two beautiful women who make the soap themselves, as well as the chili-cognac chocolate that they’ll spoonfeed to you personally.

Gwendolyn, a fairy, spray-painted in green and gold and outfitted with wings peddled absinthe in small glass bottles. (The bar has adopted the green liqueur as its signature ingredient since it was legalized 11 months ago.) Strings of golden lights peppered the eerie darkness like incandescent fish in the deep sea and the whole scene became the precursor to a million future dreams. As the three hour show progressed, performers started blending in with the audience and the line between reality and fantasy blurred into pure interaction. Only Lucent Dossier’s acrobats can make a knot in a curtain, the sexiest prop we’ve ever seen.